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"You down wit OPM?"
Fumo: "Yeah, you know me!"

The actual speech where he said that was pretty funny. He went on about how his people had told him he had "a little something" (the $250k) in an account somewhere and that he was going to give it away. I guess he isn't aware of what he owns

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Wow, he has $250K??? Some socialist!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x-fkSYDtUY

"Censorship is free advertising by the government"--Federico Fellini

"Do you mind if I smoke while you eat?"

I guess now he is.

....And so it goes with the "vanguard of the proletariat."

I'm torn on this situation in Venezuela, because I hate to see a Latin American country be pulled (back) down the economic toilet. I studied a lot of those countries while completing my degree, and there is an awful and tragic history there. It's especially sad in light of the revolutionary (and successful) ideas on economic development being put forward by guys like Hernando de Soto. (NB: Reading a recent PB thread on communism, I was baffled to still see someone vociferously defending it as a valid way to organize an economy.) Anyway - pardon the cliche - but Venezuela's made their bed, and they've got to lie in it.

Chavez campaigned on a definitive turn towards socialism, and he was re-elected in '06 by a large enough margin to consider it a mandate. Further, the elected National Assembly (which, thanks to the Venezuelan electorate, consists mostly of Chavez supporters) passed an enabling act that allowed Chavez to rule by decree. Perhaps these folks haven't taken any classes on the history of "enabling acts", but anyone living in Germany in the early '30s might tell you about what a bad idea they are.

How could you not have learned in your degree program that Latin American economic squalor is the result of capitalism? That's what was going on from day one once the Euros arrived.

Additionally, many American Indian cultures practice communist type social interactions, so perhaps people desire to return to their baseline. Costa Rica now has what's called Christian Socialism as a model and I bet that its creation stems from the same cultural source.

Actually, you're only a quarter-right - it was a breakdown in market forces, caused by the Spanairds, that led to the poor situation. The economienda system did essentially "repatriate" profits to Spain. What we had here is essentially a breakdown in the free-market system. Mr. Smith’s “invisible hand” cannot allocate effectively if those who are specializing in production of a certain good aren’t also seeing the profits from it. The free market would have worked. Unfortunately, the inward-looking response to a lot of this - formalized in import subsitution industrialization - proved to be even more disasterous.

The problem with "dependency theory," - which is what I imagine you're proposing - is that it's a theory constructed in hindsight, to fit a specific set of historical circumstances (those with the Spainards in Latin America). The core-periphery idea is interesting as an explanation, but doesn't generalize well. It seems to be more an indictment of the Spainards than of, as a noted dependency theorist would say, the "vagaries of the international market." Dani Rodrik, out of Harvard (who, I might add, is not exactly a gung-ho free-trader) found that these countries were not really held hostage by capitalism. When they made an effort to increase the profitability of their exports, demand increased. The real exchange rate was a more important determinant of export demand than, say, product elasticities of the goods these countries exported.

The situation in Latin America should not be a bad reflection on capitalism any more than, say, corn subsidies are a bad reflection on the market for ethanol. Ethanol is produced inefficiently because of the high subsidies on corn, and the tariffs on sugar. Free markets couldn't work in Latin America because profits were being repatriated for a time. However, like I said, the high-tariff, protectionist response in the 20th century did nothing to alleviate the problems.

Do you know how international capitalists used crops to hold Latin Americans hostage?

Meanwhile, you writing style isn't the most clear, and has nothing to do with the effects of colonialism, which I previously mentioned. Classism and racism were and are major tools in Latin America and they, of course, determine who gets their share of what.

While TheAdlerian is a major tool in America.

My tool is bigger than your tool.